Scrabble

'OK is now OK. So is 'yowza'

(Newser) -
Scrabble players, time to rethink your game because 300 new words are coming your way, including some long-awaited gems: OK and ew, to name a few. Merriam-Webster released the sixth edition of "The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary" on Monday, four years after the last freshening up. The company, at...
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Him, his wife, and Roman emperor Augustus, as the 'New Yorker' explains

(Newser) -
The New Yorker is out with a lengthy profile of Mark Zuckerberg, and a Scrabble anecdote is drawing attention. It seems Zuckerberg was playing a friend's teenage daughter on a plane, and she beat him in the first game. Before game two, he wrote a computer program to have...
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Allan Simmons says he never purposely cheated—but he may have been loose with game play

(Newser) -
A scandal that some are calling "Tile-Gate" is rocking the Scrabble world, with one of its best players now barred from competitions. Per the London Times , Allan Simmons is now prohibited from facing off against other wordsmiths due to two specific Scrabble rules—both involving the selection of letter...
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That's good for 176 points

(Newser) -
A braconid is a parasitic wasp and, if played correctly, also a 176-point Scrabble word. Over the weekend, a 37-year-old London resident took advantage of that latter fact to win the World Scrabble Championship in France, reports the Guardian . Brett Smitheram, a recruitment consultant, swept his opponent in three rounds...
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(Newser) -
You know that sense of accomplishment you get when you play all seven tiles in Scrabble? That ranks somewhere below child's play for Nigel Richards, who not only just won a Scrabble world championship, but won the French-language version. Oh, and the New Zealand native speaks no French. He...
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Dictionary updates with 1.7K new entries, including 'WTF' and 'vocal fry'

(Newser) -
Scrabble updated its dictionary last week, and now it's Merriam-Webster's turn. The dictionary has added 1,700 new entries, and many revolve around our online world, notes Time . Here are eight examples, along with the official definitions from M-W :

Lolz, too: Dictionary embraces new and not-so-new slang

(Newser) -
One of the most widely used Scrabble dictionaries is making room for 6,500 new entries. The hard-core will want to make note of quinzhee, an Inuit snow shelter that the BBC notes will rack up 29 points, followed closely by checkbox at 28. But everyone else gets to scoff...
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Young player was spotted hiding blank tiles

(Newser) -
A young Scrabble player has been ejected—or, for a higher word score, expelled—from the national championship tournament in Florida for cheating. Organizers say the player was busted after a player at another table watched him conceal a pair of blank "wild card" tiles, the AP reports. When...
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But officials refuse to perform a strip-search

(Newser) -
The World Scrabble Championship wrapped up yesterday in Warsaw, and not without more than a little drama. A Thai player became convinced that England's Ed Martin had squirreled away a 'G' tile—and demanded that he be hauled to the bathroom and strip-searched. Officials declined, the Telegraph reports,...
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But apparently not for US players

(Newser) -
Kinda cool: You can now use Indian words like "aloo" and "gobi" in Scrabble. Not so cool: You can also use slang words like "thang," "innit," and (cringe) "grrl." All of the above have been added to Collins Official Scrabble Words, a...
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Mikki Nicholson clocks the competition with 'obeisant'

(Newser) -
How many points for "unforgettable"? Pink-wigged transsexual Mikki Nicholson woke up the stodgy image of Scabble yesterday when she grabbed Britain's top game award with the word "obeisant" (look it up) finally putting her over the top. "I'm thrilled to have won and I can't wait...
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Rules won't change for original game

(Newser) -
Just imagine "Jay-Z" as a triple word score: A new edition of Scrabble will bring with it a change to one of the game’s cardinal rules—proper nouns will be legal. Mattel won’t regulate which names are allowed or introduce any rules governing spelling, it’ll just...
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Some game fans lobby for rules change

(Newser) -
If you sigh in resignation every time you pull a Z or Q out of the Scrabble letter bag, new additions to the game’s official word list probably have you sighing in relief. But aficionados say the expanding list—now including “za,” “qi,” and “...
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Vacationing singer shares more than just spelling tips will fellow resort guests

(Newser) -
After rescuing a beachgoer and stealing drinks from other hotel guests, Amy Winehouse wrapped up her Caribbean vacation with some topless Scrabble, the Sun reports. “While taking a break from her usual antics on the beach, Amy spotted some people playing Scrabble and decided to offer her spelling knowledge,...
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Remodeled Facebook app seeks to get around copyright issues

(Newser) -
The creators of Scrabulous are determined: Just 2 days after Hasbro forced Facebook to ditch their wildly popular online Scrabble impersonator, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla have introduced Wordscraper, Silicon Alley Insider reports. The new game looks less like Scrabble than Scrabulous and offers a few rule changes, but it may...
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Popular Scrabble clone unable to withstand legal pressure

(Newser) -
Facebook took down the wildly popular ‘Scrabulous’ this morning, PC Magazine reports, following a legal attack against the game's creators by the rights holders of Scrabble. The site finally folded to pressure after receiving a takedown notice from Hasbro, as well as Mattel, which owns international rights to the...
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Game maker says unsanctioned online version must go

(Newser) -
The makers of Scrabble say Scrabulous must go. Hasbro today sued the creators of the online knockoff, which is wildly popular on Facebook, and warned the social networking site to dtich the game, ABC News reports. No word yet on whether that will happen. Hasbro recently released its own online...
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